Ryan Routh, the suspect in Sunday's Florida assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump — the second in two months — brandished a fully automatic machine gun during a three-hour standoff with police in North Carolina in 2002, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported. Greensboro News & Record.
The newspaper's story focused on federal agencies, including the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security, arriving Sunday night at a Greensboro address linked to Routh, 58. The News & Record said officers spent a few minutes at the residence at 2106 Hyatt St. before leaving the scene, but it was unclear if they took anything from the home.
“A LexisNexis search of Mr Routh's name also revealed he has had numerous encounters with police and been arrested around 100 times since 1998,” the News & Record reported in its Sunday edition.
Further inside the report was a link to a short News & Record section. story The incident, dated December 16, 2002, was linked to Mr Routh, according to a story in the paper's Sunday edition.
A 2002 article states, “An armed man was arrested Monday morning after a three-hour standoff, police said, when he barricaded himself inside the store. Ryan Routh, 36, was arrested without incident at 1 a.m. Monday at United Roofing, 1735 W. Lee St., Greensboro police said.”
The article goes on to say that “Rouse was charged with carrying a concealed weapon of mass destruction and possession of a weapon of mass destruction, which refers to a fully automatic machine gun. He was also charged with resisting, delaying or obstructing a police officer and driving while license revoked.”
The 2002 incident began after police pulled Routh over three hours earlier, after he “grabbed a gun and drove to United Roofing,” the paper reported. Sunday's News & Record article reported that Routh worked for United Roofing at the time. It's unclear what happened to Routh after his 2002 arrest.
“A LexisNexis search of Routh's name also showed he has had numerous encounters with police and been arrested approximately 100 times since 1998,” the News & Record reported in its Sunday article.
The paper's Sunday article added, “Routh also has trouble with taxes, with 14 outstanding judgments and liens, according to LexisNexis.”
A suspected assassination attempt on President Trump
In connection with Sunday's attempted assassination of President Trump in West Palm Beach, the News & Record reported that Routh attached a GoPro camera to a fence and put the muzzle of a rifle through it before fleeing the Trump International Golf Course. An AK-47 was reportedly recovered.
The newspaper quoted Martin County Sheriff William D. Snyder as saying that the suspect was arrested along Interstate 95 within minutes of the FBI, Secret Service and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office issuing a “highly urgent” alert detailing “the specific vehicle, license plate number and description of the occupants being sought,” the Associated Press reported.
“One of my road patrol officers located the vehicle, matched the license plate and deployed on the vehicle,” Snyder told the News & Record. “We subdued the vehicle, brought it to a safe stop and took the driver into custody.”
Snyder added to WPTV-TV that the suspect “was unarmed when he was removed from the vehicle,” according to the paper. The News & Record quoted Snyder as saying that the suspect showed little emotion, appeared calm and expressionless and did not ask questions about why he was pulled over.
“He never asked, 'What is this?' Obviously there are officers with long rifles and blue lights and a lot going on. He didn't question it,” Snyder told the Associated Press, according to the News & Record.
Connection with Ukraine
The News & Record also cited a Facebook post dated Dec. 23, 2023, in which Routh “portrayed himself as a sort of soldier-for-hire agent willing to fight in Ukraine and boasted about his connections to foreign soldiers” and said he “fought for Ukraine for several months in 2022.”
More from the paper:
“We have thousands of Afghan soldiers willing to serve in the Haitian National Police for low wages. We have 1,000 with passports ready to go,” and a final plea: “Please help us,” after a phone number written on the post.
Routh has not told authorities what motive he may have for trying to kill Trump.
The former president has stated publicly that he would not support the war in Ukraine if elected in 2024.
The News & Record also noted that The New York Times interviewed Rouse for a 2023 story about “volunteers from the United States and other countries who traveled to help embattled Ukraine and fight Russia.”
More from the paper:
“We are looking for recruits among Afghan soldiers who have fled the Taliban” to fight alongside members of the International Corps, a volunteer group set up by Ukraine for its soldiers abroad, he told The New York Times.
Rouse told The New York Times he was helping the Legion after membership numbers dwindled. He also said “dozens” of soldiers have responded to his recruitment efforts and that he plans to transfer them from Pakistan and Iran to Ukraine. Such transfers could be illegal in some cases, Rouse told The New York Times in a March 23, 2023, article.
The Times article highlighted the fact that through the International Legion, volunteers who did not necessarily have military training had access to a wide variety of weapons.
The Times reported in its Sunday edition that Routh, who appears to have lived in Hawaii in recent years, in a 2020 Facebook post invited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to vacation in Hawaii and play host to help finalize a peace agreement between North Korea and the United States.
Anything else?
Routh has lived most of his life in Guilford County, North Carolina, where Greensboro is located, and is registered to vote at the Hyatt Street address where federal authorities arrived at the scene Sunday night, according to the News & Record, citing records. Routh is an unaffiliated voter and most recently voted in the Democratic primary in March.
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